I still remember those uncertain weeks before high school graduation when students gathered by the creek behind our school, talking about their futures. While many seemed confident about their path forward, I had not yet found mine.

One day, standing on a rock in the middle of the creek, I closed my eyes and listened—to my friends’ voices, the rustling leaves, and the water flowing gently over the stones.

In that quiet moment, I realized that water naturally finds its way forward, moving around whatever lies in its path. As I stood there, listening, I heard an unmistakable inner voice say:

“I will serve.”

I walked back to class not yet knowing whom I would serve or how.

Even then, I recognized our shared human vulnerability and felt called to help others live healthier, more meaningful lives.

That calling became a lifelong career in healthcare.

I began by volunteering at the Women’s Health Collective in Santa Cruz, California, earned a bachelor’s degree in Nutritional Science, and spent six weeks on a medical mission high in the Peruvian Andes. Inspired by that experience, I completed my Physician Assistant training in Primary Care Medicine at Stanford University and went on to practice in community, migrant, and military health clinics.

Midway through my career, I earned a Master of Public Health from the University of Washington, deepening my understanding of the social and environmental factors that shape health.

Over the decades, I have cared for thousands of patients. While medicine rightly emphasizes diagnosis and treatment, I have come to believe that compassionate care and genuine human connection are among our most powerful tools for healing—and sometimes, even prevention.

Then dementia arrived on my doorstep.

Despite decades in medicine, I was unprepared to become my mother’s caregiver.

At first, I resisted.

Gradually, I opened my heart and discovered something unexpected: caring was not simply another responsibility—it was a way of being.

That realization transformed my life.

As I navigated the challenges of Alzheimer’s caregiving, I felt compelled to write—not simply to tell my mother’s story, but to understand my own transformation. Also,  to help others understand what happens when dementia enters your life.  Our stories share commonalities.

The result is The Heart of Caring in the Age of Forgetting, a memoir that weaves together personal experience, medical insight, and the enduring lessons of love, loss, resilience, and compassion.

My hope is that our journey offers comfort, practical wisdom, and renewed hope to anyone caring for a loved one. If this story helps even one caregiver feel less alone or better prepared for the road ahead, then it has fulfilled the promise I first heard beside that creek so many years ago:

“I will serve.”

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